Women?

What stereotypes? Only meaningful idea of ​​stereotypes and general assumptions, symbols simplified one, it was announced, and adapted to a group of people. It is typical of social classification and does not contain new features, such as "Hollywood heroes must be white people."

It's hard to avoid stereotypes in the media: it has become practical in the production of media products. For example, the Hollywood film industry is said to grow based on the stereotypical narrative to attract the attention of American audiences the initial group of illiterate people.

How can local media content? A comprehensive study done by the local media of communication scholars find this nation still retain stereotyped images of women. Advertising as laden with stereotypical images of women. Women are still portrayed as housewives, exposed, sexy, emotional, and bound by traditional features such as love cooking and "melaram". Pictures of women used to promote the products and services. It can be accepted if the goods for women using female models. What about ads that do not respect like a car tire?

Our women's magazines often show regular tied to the world of women, beauty, fashion, cooking and household tips. It also serves as an agent of recent lifestyle promotion with the provisions of the fashion pages of more than editorial.In the study by Fauziah Ramly for workshops organized by the Asia-Pacific Development Centre in 1992 on a sample of Her World magazine, found 35% allocated to the fashion pages. The total exceeds the provisions of article pages on rural development, environment, health, career and well-written and certainly more useful.

A local drama and film is not much to uplift the status of women with an active role and can be emulated. Hollywood depicts women as passive and does not have an important role in society. Women are described as bound by the household chores, working on farms and duties of the office. Will see the characters of a beautiful woman, dependent on others (husband / father), loyal, patient and suffering.

The media should raise the image of women knowledgeable and stop display of knowledge and fantasy can not be bought. Attention to issues that can improve the quality of self and mind must be a priority. Media practitioners must have a strong and continuing mission to uplift the status of women and empowering women is the reality of our success has been achieved.

-Dewan Masyarakat Disember 2001 Ms 30 - 31

Stereotypes are simple,one-dimensional portrayals of people..

Stereotypes are simple, one-dimensional portrayals of people—usually based on sex, race, religion, profession or age.  From my personal experinece when I was young, I have always thought step parents  are cruel as I have been exposed to tv fairytales series like  Snow White, Hansel and Gretel and the  wicked stepmother in Cinderella.When I grew up there are many movies that have dumb blondes in them, the blonde characters in the movie always saying something stupid and some how or rather stereotype got stuck in my head that all blondes are stupid. However, in local tv series I realized the traditional stereotypes of women as the secretary, housewife, homemaker or impoverished single parent has been replaced by a more modern stereotype, the successful, independent career focused woman. 

MEDIA STEREOTYPE

Media Stereotyping  Media stereotypes are inevitable, especially in the advertising, entertainment and news industries, which need as wide an audience as possible to quickly understand information. Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people—usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation. But stereotypes can be problematic. They can: reduce a wide range of differences in people to simplistic categorizations transform assumptions about particular groups of people into "realities" be used to justify the position of those in power perpetuate social prejudice and inequality More often than not, the groups being stereotyped have little to say about how they are represented. This section comments on common media stereotypes and examines some of the root causes of stereotypical portrayals, including lack of diversity behind the scenes in newsrooms and film studios. The section explores the impact of stereotyping on self-image and the development of attitudes among the young, and it showcases efforts to counter stereotyping with alternative programming. It also outlines diversity guidelines for the broadcasting industry, as well as government policies to promote fair and equitable portrayals in Canadian media. For further information and research, each of the sub-topic sections below also offers a continually updated selection of pertinent articles, reports, surveys, statistics, and Web sites. AND the media portrays such as.......... Ethnic and Visible Minorities This section examines the representation of minority groups in the media industry—both onscreen, in sitcoms and news reporting, and off-screen, in terms of hiring practices. It also looks at Canadian government policies and broadcasting industry codes that encourage diversity. Aboriginal People This section examines media attitudes to First Nations, Inuit and Native American peoples - from early films and television to today's coverage and portrayals. The section looks at the effect on young people's attitudes of seeing Aboriginal people shown primarily in cartoons or as sports mascots; and it also discusses the development of Aboriginal broadcasting in Canada. Girls and Women This section explores female stereotypes in entertainment and news media, including onscreen portrayals of women, their effect on cultural ideas of beauty, and how these stereotypes influence the social development of young women. The section also examines the economic interests that drive media attitudes towards women. Men and Masculinity This section examines common stereotypes of masculinity on TV, in men's magazines, and in advertising and sports media. It discusses society's definitions of male roles and attributes, and the effect that media portrayals have on men's (and young people's) notions of what masculinity means. Gays and Lesbians This section offers a brief overview of how gays and lesbians are portrayed in the media: the evolution of gay portrayals in film, issues related to gays and lesbians in television, and how advertising and news coverage treat gays and lesbians. Whiteness and White Privilege This section explores the social norms and expectations associated with being white—including the media's tendency to accord respect and authority to white people, especially from the middle and upper classes. Onscreen and behind the scenes, white privilege (along with male privilege, and "straight" privilege) fosters a climate of systemic discrimination that tends to exclude many diverse views from the media. Persons with Disabilities This section examines common stereotypes of persons with disabilities in mass media and the news. It discusses concerns about media representation of disability, including lack of participation, as well as looks at solutions to better represent persons with disabilities.

Topic Discussion 2.

From your personal experiences and research, what other media stereotypes (besides the example from the documentary) have you seen either on TV, magazines or in the movies? 

What are your opinions about this thing? Let's discuss peeps! 

Gaming in Social Media

If you think gaming is a bad influence to the humanity, you might as well want to rethink it again.

Ever heard of online game? MMORPG? Virtual worlds? Dude, if you haven’t heard of any of those three terms, where have you been for the past 10 years? But I certainly believe that most people know those terms ever since World of Warcraft or Ragnarok Online have become a phenomenal massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

When I first play an online game a few years ago, my opinion is that maybe I won’t last long since it’s just a game, with fake money and epic winnings. But surprisingly it lasted about 15 months before the game contents updater speed is really ticking me off. During the 15 months of playing, I discover a new meaning of words, languages, terms, friends, and even marketing strategy there. Not to forget that sometimes I have to do mathematics to find which latitude I’m living since the time here and American server (they have many servers but sadly they do not have Malaysian server) time for few official game events.

If you ask me how online games can socially connect people? Players can use instant messaging during game playtime and some online game is able to offer a character interactivity between players such as handshake. It does not stop to only an instant messaging, the people in charge of the server also provide a forums, wikis, blogs and chatroom where players can socialize even when they’re offline and thus creating a community.

Online game also provide education though in minimal amount. A friend of mine whom originally come from Japanese server but instead she join American server to practice her English. Though not verbally, but it still improve her English writing skill.

As businessmen compete in the real world, they also compete in virtual world. Heck… I have to learn how negotiate with players if I want to buy something worth the price. I need to go interrogate few peoples before I have to compare the prices and the item durability (yes, the game install a durability on the item and if the durability goes down it will go poof next). Most online games provides player to be able to setting up their own temporary shop for limited amount of items and time at the bazaar area but unable to receive a feedback unless the buyer have contacted the player through the instant messaging to negotiate the price. However, most players prefer to set up their shop in forum as they can easily view the feedbacks and offers from their buyers. From this way, players able to updating their item list without limit including the item details and as well the service that they will offer to the buyers.

Did social media change my life?

Social media really changed the life by Matt Sky, a web designer in New York City.

This is my experience of social media :

When I was young, I have no idea about social media. It is famous when I was in form two. Social media is the most famous is the time of myspace. Beginning at the time, I began to brace up to meet people who do not know. I started I began to interact with other friend only using the comment section provided. After that, I changed to friendster. That's where I can learn how to create, customize and update friendster profile such as code layout. I began to learn how to edit a profile picture in picnik.com.

But it is only for a while. This is because facebook began to grow in the days of my youth. I think facebook is more easy and friendly than others. Up to today I still use facebook as a place to fill the space time. Here I met again with my friends who have not met like old friends during primary school. Here, I can talk to everyone I know because there is no shyness to talk to one another such as in chatting. This is because we do not have to confront each other. In fact, facebook has also created places for good marketing. I can promote the event or product that will be held. It also allows us to create forums, group or fan page to help us get more details about information. In addition, I can also share photo to friends to share happiness with each other.

I also make myself active to twitter world. Twitter is my place to release stress and excitement. However, twitter is a little different world, we must convince ourselves that is not easy to believe the words of people and we cannot trust immediately the status of our friends when they are stress. This is also can mature ourselves to become more believe yourself not others. Lastly, it is google. My favorite search engine is google. It is simple and easy to make research on matters of education.

For conclusion, we need to know the pros and cons social media. Not all information can be in right and not all wrong. So, we have to think wisely to make a right decision.

The lifestyle; is it for better or worse?

“We lived in a world, completely different world than we used to. The people, they’ve changed.”

Did you know what social media is?Hmm probably the word would sound foreign to your ears. But what about Facebook, Twitter, Skype, flickr and foursquare huh? Not so foreign anymore right? So basically social media IS Facebook, Twitter, flickr and foursquare; those sites that you couldn’t live a day without.

Now, let me ask you some questions. Do you still remember how back in those days we communicate with other people using snail-mail? Wow, those days seems so faraway now with the existence of Internet. What century was that anyway, the 18^th? Heck, I didn’t even think I had ever sent a snail-mail before.

Social media did wonders in improving our life, but don’t you think we spend too much time and rely too much on social media? When the last time you refer to a book if you didn’t know something? I couldn’t remember, because I only used Google if I feel clueless.

I could spend hours doing nothing but staring people’s pictures onFacebook. With that said, my times that supposed to be precious doing assignments and hanging out with family and friends are just wasted doing absolutely nothing beneficiary or productive at all.

See the differences? Uh-huh.

Honestly, I would feel very…empty if I have not logged in into any of those social media in a day. I would feel left behind, I would feel lost if I did not do so. It’s pretty much an addiction. I tried once deactivating my Facebook account for a week but I feel so lost because even puny things like assignments are discussed through Facebook, how would I continue on living if I deactivate my Facebook forever?

Social media is taking away the pleasure of communicating and meeting in person as everything could be done virtually. Dating, flirting, working, eating, playing – you name it. Everything could be done virtually. Remember Wall –E? The side effects of humans relying way too much on technology, it ain’t a pretty sight – if you know what I mean.

You want to be like this? Really?

Information spreads faster as well on social media. There are good sides of this (in times of natural disasters like earthquake) since the Internet is basically unfiltered unlike broadcast and printed media where details are filtered and manipulated for some purposes. BUT with this rumours could also spread faster, faster than you could say ‘fast’. C’mon, tell me, how many times have you read faked death news of a celebrity on social media?

I have lost count on how many times Justin Bieber died.

With social media too, people generally have become meaner due to the anonymousity of the Internet. People could say that they have the right to comment on anything as they like but really, in real life, would you dare too? It’s a good thing that people have become more outspoken (albeit, online) but I feel the need to stress the line of being mean/troll or just speaking out their thoughts.

Say for example, let’s take Rebecca Black. She debuted on Youtube with Friday. Yeah, you know, that horrendous catchy song “Friday, Friday getting down on Friday”. So, she’s only 13 or 14 but the comments on the video saying that she should just die and everything is just…”wait, a second, you didn’t even know this girl and you telling her to go die just because of a song, don’t you think it’s…mean?”

Imagine if Ms. Black in front of you, do you have the guts to tell her that? I don’t think so.

It didn’t help that Ms. Black’s horrendously catchy song had become an internet meme, that in my opinion is worse than school bullying. You can say meme is a part of internet pop culture and stuff but really, if you were in poor little Rebecca’s shoes, would you say the same as well?

Well, so that’s my take on how social media affects the society.To conclude this post, social media is just like drugs. It could be good or bad based on how you handled it. Too bad there's no rehab for social media addicts :(